Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • A Nuclear Crisis

    This article appeared in the Washington Post, Editorials and Opinions Section.

    Every five years, the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) comes up for reassessment by the countries that have signed it. This is the treaty that provides for international restraints (and inspections) on nuclear programs. It covers not only the nuclear nations but 180 other countries as well, including Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya. An end to the NPT could terminate many of these inspections and open a Pandora’s box of nuclear proliferation in states that already present serious terrorist threats to others.

    Now it is time for the 30-year-old NPT to be reviewed (in April, by an international assembly at the United Nations), and, sad to say, the current state of affairs with regard to nuclear proliferation is not good. In fact, I think it can be said that the world is facing a nuclear crisis. Unfortunately, U.S. policy has had a good deal to do with creating it.

    At the last reassessment session, in 1995, a large group of non-nuclear nations with the financial resources and technology to develop weapons–including Egypt, Brazil and Argentina–agreed to extend the NPT, but with the proviso that the five nuclear powers take certain specific steps to defuse the nuclear issue: adoption of a comprehensive test ban treaty by 1996; conclusion of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and “determined pursuit” of efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals, with the ultimate goal of eliminating them.

    It is almost universally conceded that none of these commitments has been honored. India and Pakistan have used this failure to justify their joining Israel as nations with recognized nuclear capability that are refusing to comply with NPT restraints. And there has been a disturbing pattern of other provocative developments:

    • For the first time I can remember, no series of summit meetings is underway or in preparation to seek further cuts in nuclear arsenals. The START II treaty concluded seven years ago by presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin has not been seriously considered for ratification by the Russian parliament.
    • Instead of moving away from reliance on nuclear arsenals since the end of the Cold War, both the United States and NATO have sent disturbing signals to other nations by declaring that these weapons are still the cornerstone of Western security policy, and both have re-emphasized that they will not comply with a “no first use” policy. Russia has reacted to this U.S. and NATO policy by rejecting its previous “no first use” commitment; strapped for funds and unable to maintain its conventional forces of submarines, tanks, artillery, and troops, it is now much more likely to rely on its nuclear arsenal.
    • The United States, NATO and others still maintain arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons, including up to 200 nuclear weapons in Western Europe.
    • Despite the efforts of Gens. Lee Butler and Andrew Goodpaster, Adm. Stansfield Turner and other military experts, American and Russian nuclear missiles are still maintained in a “hair-trigger alert” status, susceptible to being launched in a spur-of-the-moment crisis or even by accident.
    • After years of intense negotiation, recent rejection by the U.S. Senate of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was a serious blow to global nuclear control efforts and to confidence in American leadership.
    • There is a notable lack of enforcement of the excessively weak international agreements against transfer of fissile materials.
    • The prospective adoption by the United States of a limited “Star Wars” missile defense system has already led Russia, China and other nations to declare that this would abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which has prevailed since 1972. This could destroy the fabric of existing international agreements among the major powers.
    • There is no public effort or comment in the United States or Europe calling for Israel to comply with the NPT or submit to any other restraints. At the same time, we fail to acknowledge what a powerful incentive this is to Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt to join the nuclear community.
    • The U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) has been recently abolished, removing an often weak but at least identifiable entity to explore arms issues.

    I believe that the general public would be extremely concerned if these facts were widely known, but so far such issues have not been on the agenda in presidential debates.

    A number of responsible non-nuclear nations, including Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden have expressed their disillusionment with the lack of progress toward disarmament. The non-proliferation system may not survive unless the major powers give convincing evidence of compliance with previous commitments.

    In April, it is imperative that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty be reconfirmed and subsequently honored by leaders who are inspired to act wisely and courageously by an informed public. This treaty has been a key deterrent to the proliferation of weapons, and its unraveling would exert powerful pressures even on peace-loving nations to develop a nuclear capability.

    All nuclear states must renew efforts to achieve worldwide reduction and ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. In the meantime, it requires no further negotiations for leaders of nuclear nations to honor existing nuclear security agreements, including the test ban and anti-ballistic missile treaties, and to remove nuclear weapons from their present hair-trigger alert status.

    Just as American policy is to blame for many of the problems, so can our influence help resolve the nuclear dilemma that faces the world.

  • Questions to Ask US Political Candidates — Presidential or Congressional — in this Election Year

    Where do you stand on these issues?

    1. Do you favor or oppose reductions in spending for defense?
    2. Do you favor or oppose deployment of a ballistic missile defense for the US?
    3. Do you favor or oppose the sale of military weapons to countries that violate the human rights of their citizens?
    4. Do you favor or oppose US leadership to achieve a treaty for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons?
    5. Do you favor or oppose US initiation of reciprocal unilateral steps to reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal?
    6. Do you favor or oppose giving increased financial support to Russia to help control its nuclear arsenal?
    7. Do you favor or oppose the US signing and ratifying the international treaty to ban landmines?
    8. Do you favor or oppose US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?
    9. Do you favor or oppose US participation in an International Criminal Court to hold individuals accountable for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity?
    10. Do you favor or oppose full and timely payment of US dues to the United Nations?

  • The Most Important Moral Issue of our Time

    There are many reasons to oppose nuclear weapons. They are illegal, undemocratic, hugely expensive, and they undermine rather than increase security. But by far the most important reason to oppose these weapons is that they are profoundly immoral.

    Above all, the issue of nuclear weapons in our world is a deeply moral issue, and for the religious community to engage this issue is essential; for the religious community to ignore this issue is shameful.

    I have long believed that our country would become serious about providing leadership for the elimination of nuclear weapons in the world only when the churches, synagogues and mosques became serious about demanding such leadership.

    The abolition of nuclear weapons is the most important issue of our time. I do not say this lightly. I know how many other important life and death issues there are in our world. I say it because nuclear weapons have the capacity to end all human life on our planet and most other forms of life. This puts them in a class by themselves.

    Although I refer to nuclear weapons, I don’t believe that these are really weapons. They are instruments of mass annihilation. They incinerate, vaporize and destroy indiscriminately. They are instruments of portable holocaust. They destroy equally soldiers and civilians; men, women and children; the aged and the newly born; the healthy and the infirm.

    Nuclear weapons hold all Creation hostage. In an instant they could destroy this city or any city. In minutes they could leave civilization, with all its great accomplishments, in ruins. These cruel and inhumane devices hold life itself in the balance.

    There is no moral justification for nuclear weapons. None. As General Lee Butler, a former commander in chief of the US Strategic Command, has said: “We cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it.”

    That nuclear weapons are an absolute evil was the conclusion of the President of the International Court of Justice, Mohammed Bedjaoui, after the Court was asked to rule on the illegality of these weapons.

    I think that it is a reasonable conclusion – the only conclusion a sane person could reach. I would add that our reliance on these evil instruments debases our humanity and insults our Creator.

    Albert Einstein was once asked his opinion as to what weapons would be used in a third world war. He replied that he didn’t know, but that if there was a third world war a fourth world war would probably be fought with sticks and stones. His response was perhaps overly optimistic.

    Controlling and eliminating these weapons is a responsibility that falls to those of us now living. It is a responsibility we are currently failing to meet.

    Ten years after the end of the Cold War there are still some 36,000 nuclear weapons in the world, mostly in the arsenals of the US and Russia. Some 5,000 of these weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on warning and subject to accident or miscalculation.

    Today arms control is in crisis. The US Senate recently failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the first treaty voted down by the Senate since the Treaty of Versailles. Congress has also announced its intention to deploy a National Missile Defense “as soon as technologically feasible.” This would abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a cornerstone of arms control. The Russian Duma has not yet ratified START II, which was signed in 1993.

    Efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons are also in crisis. There is above all the issue of Russian “loose nukes.” There is no assuredness that these weapons are under control. There is also the new nuclear arms race in South Asia. There is also the issue of Israel possessing nuclear arms — with the implicit agreement of the Western nuclear weapons states — in their volatile region of the world.

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty is also in crisis. This will become more prominent when the five year Review Conference for the treaty is held this spring. Most non-nuclear weapons states believe that the nuclear weapons states have failed to meet their obligations for good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. More than 180 states have met their obligations not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. The five nuclear weapons states, however, have failed to meet their obligations for good faith efforts to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

    The US government continues to consider nuclear weapons to be “essential” to its security. NATO has referred to nuclear weapons as a “cornerstone” of its security policy.

    Russia recently proposed that the US and Russia go beyond the START II agreement and reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,500 weapons each. The US declined saying that it was only prepared to go down to 2,000 to 2,500 weapons each. Such is the insanity of our time.

    Confronting this insanity are four efforts I will describe briefly.

    • The New Agenda Coalition is a group of middle power states – including Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden and South Africa — calling for an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons states for the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. UN Resolutions of the New Agenda Coalition have passed the General Assembly by large margins in 1998 and 1999, despite lobbying by the US, UK and France to oppose these resolutions.
    • A representative of the New Agenda Coalition recently stated at a meeting at the Carter Center: “A US initiative today can achieve nuclear disarmament. It will require a self-denying ordnance, which accepts that the five nuclear weapons states will have no nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. By 2005 the United States will already have lost the possibility of such an initiative.” I agree with this assessment. The doors of opportunity, created a decade ago by the end of the Cold War, will not stay open much longer.
    • The Middle Powers Initiative is a coalition of eight prominent international non-governmental organizations that are supporting the role of middle power states in seeking the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Middle Powers Initiative recently collaborated with the Carter Center in bringing together representatives of the New Agenda Coalition with high-level US policymakers and representatives of civil society. It was an important dialogue. Jimmy Carter took a strong moral position on the issue of nuclear disarmament, and you should be hearing more from him in the near future.
    • Abolition 2000 is a global network of more than 1,400 diverse civil society organizations from 91 countries on six continents. The primary goal of Abolition 2000 is a negotiated treaty calling for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons within a timebound framework. One of the current efforts of Abolition 2000 is to expand its network to over 2000 organizations by the time of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference this spring. You can find out more about Abolition 2000 at www.abolition2000.org
    • A final effort I will discuss is the establishment of a US campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has hosted a series of meetings with key US leaders in the area of nuclear disarmament. These include former military, political, and diplomatic leaders, among them General Lee Butler, Senator Alan Cranston, and Ambassador Jonathan Dean.

    I believe that we have worked out a good plan for a Campaign to Alert America, but we currently lack the resources to push this campaign ahead at the level that it requires. We are doing the best we can, but we are not doing enough. We need your help, and the help of religious groups all over this country.

    I will conclude with five steps that the leaders of the nuclear weapons states could take now to end the nuclear threat to humanity. These are steps that we must demand of our political leaders. These are steps that we must help our political leaders to have the vision to see and the courage to act upon.

    • Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
    • De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
    • Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
    • Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently being spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.

    The future is in our hands. I urge you to join hands and take a strong moral stand for humanity and for all Creation. We do it for the children, for each other, and for the future. The effort to abolish nuclear weapons is an effort to protect the miracle that we all share, the miracle of life.

    Each of us is a source of hope. Will you turn to the persons next to you, and tell them, “You give me hope,” and express to them your commitment to accept your share of responsibility for saving humanity and our beautiful planet.

    Together we will change the world!

     

  • Open Letter to the Leaders of all Non-Nuclear Weapons States

    Your Excellencies:

    The outcome of the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which begins April 24, 2000 at the United Nations in New York, will play a significant role in determining the security of humanity in the 21st century. Your personal commitment to a successful outcome of this Review Conference is essential to strengthening nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, and thus to humanity’s future.

    The nuclear perils to humanity are not sufficiently widely recognized nor appreciated. In the words of writer Jonathan Schell, we have been given “the gift of time,” but that gift is running out. For this reason vision and bold action are called for.

    General George Lee Butler, a former Commander in Chief of all US strategic nuclear weapons, poses these questions: “By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at the moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestation?”

    It is time to heed the warnings of men like General Butler, who know intimately the risks and consequences of nuclear war. The time is overdue for a New Agenda on nuclear disarmament. What is needed is commitment and leadership on behalf of humanity and all life.

    The heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty agreement is the link between non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The non-nuclear weapons states agree in the Treaty not to develop nor acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for the nuclear weapons states agreeing to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. The Treaty has become nearly universal and the non-nuclear weapons states, with a few notable exceptions, have adhered to the non-proliferation side of the bargain. The progress on nuclear disarmament, however, has been almost entirely unsatisfactory, leading many observers to conclude that the intention of the nuclear weapons states is to preserve indefinitely a two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.”

    At the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference many countries and non-governmental organizations challenged the nuclear disarmament record of the nuclear weapons states. They argued that to extend the Treaty indefinitely without more specific progress from the nuclear weapons states was equivalent to writing a blank check to states that had failed to keep their promises for 25 years. These countries and NGOs urged instead that the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty be linked to progress on Article VI promises of good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament. Pressure from the nuclear weapons states led to the Treaty being extended indefinitely, but only with agreement to a set of non-binding Principles and Objectives that was put forward by the Republic of South Africa.

    These Principles and Objectives provided for:

    — completion of a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996;

    — early conclusion of negotiations for a non-discriminatory and universally applicable treaty banning production of fissile materials; and

    — determined pursuit by the nuclear weapons states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of their elimination.

    Progress toward these goals has been unimpressive. A CTBT was adopted in 1996, but has been ratified only by the UK and France among the nuclear weapons states. The US argues that the CTBT necessitates its $4.6 billion per year “Stockpile Stewardship” program, which enables it to design new nuclear weapons and modify existing nuclear weapons in computer-simulated virtual reality tests and “sub-critical” nuclear tests. Despite the existence of this provocative program, ratification of the CTBT by the US Senate was rejected in October 1999. The US and Russia continue to conduct “sub-critical” nuclear weapons tests. Negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty have yet to begin, and the “determined pursuit” promise has been systematically and progressively ignored by the nuclear weapons states.

    In its 1997 Presidential Decision Directive 60, the US reaffirmed nuclear weapons as the “cornerstone” of its security policy and opened the door to the use of nuclear weapons against a country using chemical or biological weapons. The US, UK and France have also resisted proposals by other NATO members for a review of NATO nuclear policy. Under urgent prodding by Canada and Germany, they did finally agree to a review of nuclear policy, but this will not be completed until December 2000, after the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    The US seems intent on moving ahead with a National Missile Defense plan, even if it means abrogating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which most analysts view as a bedrock treaty for further nuclear arms reductions. The US is also moving ahead with space militarization programs. In the US Space Command’s “Vision for 2020” document, the US proclaims its intention of “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.”

    Russia has abandoned its policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons in favor of a policy mirroring that of the western nuclear weapons states. The START II agreement is stalled and is still not ratified by the Russian Duma. The date for completion of START II has, in fact, been set back for five years from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2007. Negotiations on START III are stalled.

    China is modernizing its nuclear arsenal. India and Pakistan, countries that have consistently criticized the discriminatory nature of the NPT, have both overtly tested nuclear weapons and joined the nuclear weapons club. Israel, another country refusing to join the NPT, will not acknowledge that it has developed nuclear weapons and has imprisoned Mordechai Vanunu for more than 13 years for speaking out on Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

    In the face of the intransigence of the nuclear weapons states, the warning bells are sounding louder and louder. These warnings have been put forward by the Canberra Commission, the International Court of Justice, retired generals and admirals, past and present political leaders, the New Agenda Coalition, the Tokyo Forum, and many other distinguished individuals and non-governmental organizations working for peace and disarmament.

    The future of humanity is being held hostage to self-serving policies of the nuclear weapons states. This is an intolerable situation, not only for the myopic vision it represents and the disrespect for the rest of the world that is implicit in these policies, but, more important, for the squandering of the precious opportunity to eliminate the nuclear weapons threat to our common future.

    The more nuclear weapons in the world, the greater the danger to humanity. At present we lack even an effective accounting of the numbers and locations of these weapons and the nuclear materials to construct them. The possibilities of these weapons or the materials to make them falling into the hands of terrorists, criminals or potential new nuclear weapons states has increased since the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

    What is to be done? Will the 2000 NPT Review Conference again be bullied by strong-armed negotiating techniques and false promises of the nuclear weapons states? Or will the non-nuclear weapons states, the vast majority of the world’s nations, unite in common purpose to demand that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their long-standing promises and obligations in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty?

    Ridding the world of nuclear weapons is the greatest challenge of our time. We ask you to step forward and meet this challenge by demanding in a unified voice that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. As we stand on the threshold of a new century and millennium, we ask that you call upon the nuclear weapons states to take the following steps to preserve the Non-Proliferation Treaty and end the threat that nuclear weapons arsenals pose to all humanity:

    • Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
    • Publicly acknowledge the weaknesses and fallibilities of deterrence: that deterrence is only a theory and is clearly ineffective against nations whose leaders may be irrational or suicidal; nor can deterrence assure against accidents, misperceptions, miscalculations, or terrorists.
    • Publicly acknowledge the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons under international law as stated by the International Court of Justice in its 1996 opinion, and further acknowledge the obligation under international law for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.
    • Publicly acknowledge the immorality of threatening to annihilate millions, even hundreds of millions, of people in the name of national security.
    • De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
    • Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Establish an international accounting system for all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials.
    • Sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, cease laboratory and subcritical nuclear tests designed to modernize and improve nuclear weapons systems, cease construction of Megajoule in France and the National Ignition Facility in the US and end research programs that could lead to the development of pure fusion weapons, and close the remaining nuclear test sites in Nevada and Novaya Zemlya.
    • Re-affirm the commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and cease efforts to violate that Treaty by the deployment of national or theater missile defenses, and cease the militarization of space.
    • Support existing nuclear weapons free zones, and establish new ones in the Middle East, Central Europe, North Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.
    • Set forth a plan to complete the transition under international control and monitoring to zero nuclear weapons by 2020, with agreed upon levels of nuclear disarmament to be achieved by the NPT Review Conferences in 2005, 2010 and 2015.
    • Begin to reallocate the billions of dollars currently being spent annually for maintaining nuclear arsenals ($35 billion in the U.S. alone) to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.
    • You have a unique historical opportunity to unite in serving humanity. We urge you to seize the moment.

    Sincerely,

    David Krieger

    President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    cc: Leaders of United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel

  • The Non-Proliferation Treaty Crisis

    The global nuclear weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty is in jeopardy due to the continued failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations under the Treaty.

    Background

    The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was signed on July 1, 1968 and remains the foundation of the post-World War II global nuclear nonproliferation. 187 nations signed the treaty; four did not — Cuba, Israel, India and Pakistan. The signers agreed to convene a special conference in 25 years to decide on whether or not to continue the treaty. And in 1997 at the UN headquarters in New York, 174 nations agreed to strengthen the treaty’s review process, i.e., to continue to hold more review conferences in the years to come.

    The latest treaty review conference — the year 2000 NPT Review Conference — will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York from April 24 to May 19, 2000. The central issue for that conference is if this treaty will continue to be the centerpiece for global efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons, or if the Treaty will begin to unravel.

    The upcoming Review Conference has crucial implications not only for NPT member states, but also for non-member states, especially India, Pakistan and Israel. The upcoming conference presents a tremendous opportunity to make substantive progress towards nuclear disarmament. Crucial to the outcome of this Review Conference will be the extent to which the nuclear weapon states are able to demonstrate any progress made toward fulfilling obligations under Article VI of the NPT, which states:

    “Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    In its 1996 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice concluded unanimously that:

    “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.’

    While the number of nuclear weapons possessed by the nuclear weapon states has decreased, the status of Article VI obligations is in a state of impasse. Parties of the NPT must take nuclear responsibility and avoid further attempts to weaken non-proliferation efforts.

    Challenges to the NPT

    The following developments represent the growing peril that challenges international and human security:

    Though the Cold War ended more than ten years ago, more than 30,000 nuclear weapons remain worldwide.

    Since the 1995 NPT review and extension conference, two additional countries, India and Pakistan, have tested nuclear weapons.

    US and Russian nuclear arsenals remain in permanent, 24 hour, “launch on warning” status in spite of recommendations to de-alert nuclear weapons made by the Canberra Commission (1996), two resolutions passed by massive majorities in the UN General Assembly in 1998, another two in 1999, and a unanimous resolution of the European Parliament (1999).

    The US Senate has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in spite of nearly unanimous endorsement of the treaty by the international community and massive US public support for nuclear disarmament. In addition, the US and Russia, continue to conduct “subcritical” nuclear tests, undermining the spirit and purpose of the CTBT. The clear aim of the CTBT is to restrain weapons development, yet the US, Russia, and other weapons states proceed to develop new nuclear weapons in computer-simulated “virtual reality”, with the aid of subcritical underground nuclear testing.

    NATO has jeopardized the NPT by declaring in April 1999 that nuclear weapons are “essential” to its security.

    US efforts to deploy a National Missile Defense (NMD) system and circumvent the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, have increased tensions with Russia and China and threaten a new arms race.

    The irresponsibility of the nuclear weapons states to pursue good faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons is unacceptable. Failure to make progress on Article VI obligations provides incentive for non-nuclear states to acquire nuclear weapons, thereby increasing the nuclear danger.

    Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have undermined the international norm of nonproliferation established by the treaty.

    medium range missile tests in India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea have undermined the NPT

    Iraq’s defiance of UN Security Council Resolutions requiring it to complete its disclosure of efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction have threatened the stability of the NPT

    Nuclear weapons states are not strongly supporting the treaty’s review process. For example, the US Senate failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999 sending a message to the world that nuclear nonproliferation was not a critical issue according to the US Senate.

    Sharing peaceful uses of nuclear energy has become a contentious issue

    “Additional threats to the regime’s [NPT’s] stability came in 1999 from the erosion of American relations with both China and Russia resulting from NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia — with additional harm to relations with China resulting from US accusations of Chinese nuclear espionage and Taiwan’s announcement that it was a state separate from China despite its earlier acceptance of a US-Chinese ‘one China’ agreement. Major threats to the regime also came from the continued stalemate on arms control treaties in the Russian Duma and the US Senate, from a change in US policy to favor building a national missile defense against missile attack and from a Russian decision to develop a new generation of small nuclear weapons for defense against conventional attack.” Ambassador George Bunn, former US Ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference and a negotiator of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

  • Errors Found In Hanford Thyroid Disease Study

    Hanford Study Sees No Harm proclaimed the New York Times headline of January 28, 1999. The headlines in USA TODAY, December 15, 1999 read, Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site.

    I started my day on the January 28, 1999 with the phone ringing off the hook with calls from national, Pacific Northwest, and local media asking me what I thought about this purported “No Harm” finding of the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study (HTDS). The HTDS was a nine-year, $18 million epidemiological study to assess the impact of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation offsite emissions of radioiodine (I-131) onto an unsuspecting public from the mid 1940s to the late 1950s. Hanford released approximately 900,000 curies of I-131 between 1944 and 1957, as a byproduct of plutonium production at the facility.

    Since I was one of those exposed to Hanford’s I-131 as a child, when most vulnerable to uptake of the radioactive substance into my thyroid gland, I had followed the emissions study from its inception years ago. But I was not prepared for this unbelievable “no harm” conclusion of the HTDS researchers. The disturbing Hanford Study Sees No Harm headline appeared the New York Times just hours before the scheduled briefing in which I was to participate as a member of the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee. Somehow, someone had leaked this tidbit from the Congressional briefing on HTDS which had taken place in Washington D.C. on January 27th, a day before the public and press were to know the results of this study.

    As I spoke with NPR, national and local TV stations, and print media reporters — not yet having seen the summary materials on HTDS published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and its contractor, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) — all I could say to this barrage of media seeking me out was “I am shocked by this conclusion. This does not reflect the reality of what has happened to those of us exposed to Hanford’s radioactive emissions.” I went on to describe the fact that my entire family, exposed to Hanford’s radioiodine and other radionuclides, developed thyroid disease and cancer, and that I am the only member of my family who has survived.

    A Downwinder’s Burden – The Reality

    My father, a nuclear engineer at the Hanford facility during years of I-131 (and other radionuclide) releases, had died of aggressive, metastatic thyroid cancer three years ago. He also had hypothyroidism. My mother, who had developed both hypothyroidism and hyperparathyroidism, was to be diagnosed (just two weeks after this pronouncement by the HTDS research team of no health impact from Hanford’s radioiodine) with malignant melanoma, which killed her in less than six weeks’ time. My older brother had died in 1947, during years of Hanford radiation emissions, within the Hanford downwind area, part of an unexplained surge of neonatal deaths within the Hanford downwind area. Exposed to Hanford’s I-131 as a fetus, infant and child, I also have developed severe hypothyroidism and related health problems. Of note is that there is no history of thyroid disease anywhere in our extended family other than those of us who lived in the shadow of the Hanford nuclear facility during years of I-131 emissions. And we are not alone. An entire family devastated by thyroid disease and cancer. This story is repeated over and over amongst those of us who are Hanford “downwinders.”

    The Struggle To Correct An Erroneous Official Study

    So began the struggle by a small group of determined Hanford-exposed citizens and activists to correct this surreal, unfathomable, purported “no harm” conclusion reached by HTDS researchers. This struggle involved confronting defensive HTDS research team members in public meetings, trying to reverse the harm being done by this “conclusion” which truly did not reflect the reality of the Hanford situation.

    The HTDS summary materials given to the public and the media contained the following statement: “[T]hese results provide rather strong evidence that exposures at these levels to I-131 do not increase the risk of thyroid disease or hyperparathyroidism. These results should consequently provide a substantial degree of reassurance to the population exposed to Hanford radiation that the exposures are not likely to have affected their thyroid or parathyroid health [emphasis added].” In these public meetings, I repeatedly requested the FHCRC HTDS researchers to retract this offensive statement publicly. I asked, ‘How could Hanford-exposed people like me possibly be told we should be reassured when our loved ones were dead of thyroid cancer, and when whole families without history of thyroid disorders had developed thyroid disease?” To me, their “no harm” statement insulted the suffering, the reality of those who had been subjected to involuntary radiation exposures.

    The media, overall, was very supportive of our efforts, perhaps because it was clear to all concerned that something was definitely wrong with this “no harm” conclusion. Particularly, in light of the Chernobyl studies that brought forward facts that children exposed to I-131 from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster had statistically significant incidence of thyroid disease and thyroid cancer. This “no harm” conclusion of HTDS was inconsistent with other studies of radioiodine exposure and thyroid health harm. Something was definitely wrong with this picture.

    And so the analysis began, by citizens and scientists alike, trying to determine how this study could come to such a surreal conclusion. Already, articles and letters to the editor were appearing in regional papers from members of the American Nuclear Society and their allies, portraying these conclusions of HTDS as final, irrefutable evidence that Hanford’s I-131 had caused no harm to those exposed.

    One of the true scientific heroes in this effort is Dr. Owen Hoffman of SENES, Oak Ridge, Inc., Center for Risk Analysis. It was through the efforts of Dr. Hoffman that we were able to begin to understand what had gone wrong, and how to discuss the scientific fallacies of this study publicly. Dr. Hoffman was able to translate complex statistical concepts into understandable terms, thus empowering us to raise these issues of import with the HTDS researchers and the media.

    And, thus empowered by Dr Hoffman and others, my colleague Tim Connor, an investigative journalist and Hanford activist for many decades, and I, armed with a letter of protest co-signed by more than 22 representatives of citizen groups from around the country, went to meet with Dr Dick Jackson, director of the National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This letter raised serious concerns with regard to a number of scientific issues within HTDS and as to the communication and interpretation of the findings of this study by FHCRC and CDC to the public, Congress, and the media. These concerns included HTDS researchers’ presentation of this study as if it were conclusive proof of no thyroid or parathyroid impact from Hanford’s I-131 releases, that FHCRC exaggerated the statistical power of the study, and that the uncertainties in dose estimates and confounding NTS and global fallout I-131 doses were not specifically addressed for the HTDS cohort. The letter went on to discuss significant problems created by the information “blackout” which kept even those citizens who had been following the study throughout its history, from learning about the results of the preliminary draft of the study until we read about it in the New York Times on the morning of January 28.

    We asked Dr. Jackson to support a precedent-setting extended review by the National Academies of Science (NAS) of HTDS, a review which would address both the scientific and communications aspects of HTDS. Dr. Jackson, to his credit, understood the importance of this review, and granted our request. This is one of the first such extended reviews to be carried out by NAS, initiated by concerned citizens, reviewing not just the typical scientific components and qualities of a study, but concentrating as well upon the way the study’s preliminary findings were communicated to the public, Congress, and the media. The “normal” NAS review of this type comprises only a review of the science.

    The NAS, which is the entity reviewing HTDS, was chartered in l863. The NAS is one of the world’s most prominent scientific organizations. Its purpose is to advise the US Congress and federal agencies on scientific and technical matters. Its Board on Radiation Effects Research has played a leading role over the years in evaluating radiation health studies.

    NAS Review Conclusions

    The NAS committee released the results of its extended review of HTDS this December 12, l999, in a public meeting in Spokane, Washington, followed the next day by a briefing in Washington D.C. The conclusions reached by the NAS validated all of the arguments made by those of us who had “gone public” to contradict the misinformation portrayed by the HTDS research team. The headlines in USA TODAY, December 15, l999 read: “Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site. ”

    This is truly a victory for Hanford and all downwinders, for people everywhere exposed to I-131 — from US Department of Energy nuclear weapons facilites such as Hanford, Oak Ridge or the Idaho National Engineering Lab, or from nuclear weapons test sites such as the Nevada Test Site or Semipalatalinsk in Kazakhstan, or from nuclear accidents resulting in exposure due to global fallout. No longer can the HTDS be portrayed by US pro-nuclear factions and their allies as conclusive proof that I-131 does not cause thyroid cancer, thyroid disease and parathyroid disease.

    The NAS committee concluded the following:

    1. While the study itself was well designed, the study researchers reported the study’s findings as more conclusive than they really were purported to be.

    The committee found that “shortcomings in the analytical and statistical methods used by the study’s investigators overestimated the ability to detect radiation effects, which means the study results are less definitive than had been reported.” [NAS review report, 12/14/99, at page l] The failure by HTDS researchers to find a statistically significant relationship between increasing dose and frequency of thyroid disease was interpreted by the authors of HTDS as evidence of no effect (that is, that the negative findings were conclusive). Because there could be a true underlying effect that couldn’t be detected by this study, the results of the study were, at best inconclusive, rather than conclusive of no health impact from Hanford’s I-131 exposures, as portrayed by HTDS’ authors.

    There are several important reasons why HTDS may have not picked up this underlying effect, and these are discussed within the other findings of the NAS review, discussed below.

    2. Unlike conventional epidemiological studies, the HTDS researchers released their findings without sufficiently explaining the uncertainties involved in reconstructing radiation exposures from decades ago.

    While the NAS committee emphasized that the HTDS appears to have been well designed, the weakest link is the dosimetry (which is the method of estimating individual exposure and radiation dose). The dose estimates which were assigned to members of the group (cohort) of exposed people studied were recreated using mathematical models involving input from study participants (and their mothers, if available) with regard to their recollections of approximately how much milk study participants drank some 50+ years ago. The milk pathway is one of the primary means by which radioiodine is ingested, and is a particular concern with infants and children. The radioiodine deposits on pasture grass, the cows or goats eat the contaminated grass, and then, the radioiodine is ingested by humans as the milk is consumed. Children uptake far more radioiodine than adults in this manner, because they often consume a greater quantity of milk than adults, because their thyroids are smaller and more vulnerable than those of adults, and because of a faster metabolism than that of adults.

    Therefore, the estimated doses which were being correlated to incidence of thyroid and parathyroid disease within the HTDS study group were reconstructed from memories of milk intake years ago, and then based upon mathematical modeling of wind patterns, fallout of the radioiodine from rain, and deposition of radioiodine. These estimated Hanford doses were further confounded by the additional exposures of people within the HTDS cohort to Nevada Test Site radioiodine (from atomic bomb tests in the l950s and l960s) which was often a very substantial contributor to dose, and by fallout from global sources and the Marshall Islands Test of l954 (Test Bravo) in which fallout travelled west to east, depositing upon the Hanford exposure area as well. These confounding doses were not given detailed consideration by HTDS. An example of just how such an issue should be addressed is shown by the exemplary study performed by SENES Oak Ridge, Inc. Center for Risk Analysis, which was the first of its kind to estimate the cumulative I-131 dose received from Oak Ridge and Nevada Test Site I-131 exposures, within “uncertainty ranges” (that is, within a range of possible doses one may have received once age, diet and location are taken into account), and providing exposed populations with their estimated risk of health outcomes from these exposures. The HTDS did not deal in this way with specificity with these confounding exposures received by member of the HTDS study group.

    The amount of I-131 Hanford released after mid-l951 also were more than likely underestimated, raising the total curies released from about 750,000 to more than 900,000. Revision of the amount released would have a significant effect on the dose estimates for those who were considered within HTDS to have received low doses as compared to the higher peak releases of l945-46.

    3. The NAS committee found that the statistical power of the HTDS was not as high as claimed by the HTDS researchers.

    The NAS committee found that the statistical power calculations made by the HTDS researchers made inadequate allowance for imprecision in the dose estimates. Due to this factor, the committee concluded that HTDS did not have as much statistical power to detect radiation effects as the investigators claimed.

    4. The committee found that in media and public briefings on HTDS, the investigators failed to pay sufficient attention to the health concerns of the audience, and that HTDS investigators and CDC officials should have offered more balanced, and possibly alternative, interpretations of the findings and discussed their implications for individuals.

    This last conclusion of the NAS committee is so well reflected in the actions of one Hanford-exposed person in attendance at the public briefing held in the Hanford area, on the evening of January 28, l999. Throughout the entire several-hour briefing, this woman held up a hand painted sign, reading “I DONT BELIEVE YOU.”

    Victory Comes After Tireless Efforts

    The battle to expose the truth of the Hanford situation began on the morning of January 28, l999, and ended in the afternoon of December 12, l999, with the public briefing on the results of the NAS review of HTDS. The battle ended with the headline in USA TODAY, December 15, l999, Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site. The tireless efforts of a small group of activists succeeded and the HTDS study can no longer be portrayed as conclusive proof of no health impact from Hanford I-131.

    The HTDS study may actually turn out, upon follow-up, to be looked upon as a study portraying a slightly positive association between exposure and health. The purported “no impact” message had been echoed by conservative forces to rebut exposed communities concerns. Uncorrected, this “no impact” message was beginning to be used to nullify the public’s concerns about Nevada Test Site radioiodine exposures, exposures of radioiodine from local sites such as the Idaho National Engineering Lab (INEEL), in Oak Ridge, and exposures at other sites where I-131 was emitted as a byproduct nuclear weapons production.

    This is a truly welcomed victory for everyone. It is an especially important victory for “downwinders” including all who have been exposed anywhere in the US from the Nevada Test Site to the Department of Energy nuclear weapons research and production facilities. Downwinders face hurdles trying to get even the most minimal medical screening or medical care; even to get relief through the justice system; and all the while we bury our loved ones and hope that we are not, indeed, the sacrificial minority we have sometimes been deemed.

  • A Twelve Step Program to End Nuclear Weapons Addiction

    The following steps should be taken by the nuclear weapons states to assure a full commitment to ending the nuclear weapons threat that now hangs over the heads of all humanity and clouds our future:

    1. Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.

    2. Publicly acknowledge the weaknesses and fallibilities of deterrence: that deterrence is only a theory and is clearly ineffective against nations whose leaders may be irrational or suicidal; nor can deterrence assure against accidents, misperceptions, miscalculations, or terrorists.

    3. Publicly acknowledge the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons under international law as stated by the International Court of Justice in its 1996 opinion, and further acknowledge the obligation under international law for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.

    4. Publicly acknowledge the immorality of threatening to annihilate millions, even hundreds of millions, of people in the name of national security.

    5. De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.

    6. Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.

    7. Establish an international accounting system for all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials.

    8. Sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, cease laboratory and subcritical nuclear tests designed to modernize and improve nuclear weapons systems, cease construction of Megajoule in France and the National Ignition Facility in the US and end research programs that could lead to the development of pure fusion weapons, and close the remaining nuclear test sites in Nevada and Novaya Zemlya.

    9. Re-affirm the commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and cease efforts to violate that Treaty by the deployment of national or theater missile defenses, and cease the militarization of space.

    10. Support existing nuclear weapons free zones, and establish new ones in the Middle East, Central Europe, North Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.

    11.Set forth a plan to complete the transition under international control and monitoring to zero nuclear weapons by 2020, with agreed upon levels of nuclear disarmament to be achieved by the NPT Review Conferences in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

    12. Begin to reallocate the billions of dollars currently being spent annually for maintaining nuclear arsenals ($35 billion in the U.S. alone) to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.

  • The New Millennium: The Past As Prologue

    It is perhaps a peculiar quality of human beings that we like to count things, and we seem to become particularly excited when our numbers end up with several zeros at the end. Such is the case with the year 2000, even though it is not exactly the turning of the millennium, which will take place as the year turns from 2000 to 2001. It is close enough, however, and it has its own set of problems, which have been characterized by the expression “Y2K.” I will return to that, but first I would like to offer a few observations to provide perspective on the past as a prologue to our current situation.

    First, life has existed on Earth for some 4 billion years.

    Second, humans have existed on Earth for only some 3 million years, less than 1/1000th of the existence of life on Earth.

    Third, civilization and recorded history have existed for only some 10,000 years, barely a tick on the geological clock.

    Fourth, the Nuclear Age began only some six decades ago with the first controlled fission reaction that was sustained under the bleachers of the stadium at the University of Chicago.

    Fifth, less than 55 years ago, the first nuclear weapons were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, utterly destroying those cities and killing over 200,000 of their inhabitants.

    Sixth, throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the United States and the former Soviet Union engaged in a nuclear arms race that at its height saw the deployment of some 80,000 nuclear weapons, many of which were thousands of times more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Seventh, plutonium, which is the principal ingredient in nuclear weapons and did not exist as such until specifically created for nuclear weapons, will remain dangerous to humans and other forms of life for some 250,000 years. Even a microgram of plutonium, if inhaled, will lead to lung cancer, and we have created thousands of tons of plutonium by the fissioning of uranium for weapons and nuclear power.

    Eighth, at the present time, ten years after the end of the Cold War, eight countries have a total of some 35,000 nuclear weapons, most of them in the arsenals of the United States and Russia. Due to the conditions of social disintegration in the former Soviet Union, there is increased concern that nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials might fall (or might already have fallen) into the possession of additional countries or criminals or terrorists.

    From this very quick walk through time, we can reach some interesting conclusions.

    First, in a relatively short period of time, humans have devised a means for their own annihilation.

    Second, we have created radioactive poisons, such as the thousands of tons of plutonium, that will be a danger to humanity for some 25 times longer than civilization has existed.

    We are now an endangered species, endangered by our own cleverness in taming the atom and using the power of the atom for weapons of mass destruction.

    With our new knowledge has come the need for far higher levels of responsibility to prevent our self-destruction. As a species, we have done a poor job of accepting this responsibility.

    Let us look at what we have done in the relatively recent past to try to deal with the challenge of nuclear weapons.

    Nearly 30 years ago the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons entered into force. In that treaty, the non-nuclear weapons states promised not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. In return, the nuclear weapons states promised to engage in good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament. In other words, this treaty was a trade-off: non-proliferation for nuclear disarmament. For the most part, the non-proliferation part of the bargain has been kept. The nuclear disarmament part of the bargain has been arrogantly pushed aside by the nuclear weapons states.

    Five years ago, the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty held a Review and Extension Conference, as called for by the terms of the treaty. At that conference the treaty was extended indefinitely, although many states argued that an indefinite extension was equivalent to a blank check which should not be given to the nuclear weapons states to continue to flout the treaty provisions. At that time, certain additional promises were made: to achieve a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by 1996, to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and to “a determined pursuit” of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of their elimination.

    A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1996, but has yet to be ratified by the US, Russia, China, India or Pakistan. There has been no progress on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and there has been a noticeable lack of “determined pursuit” of nuclear disarmament. The START II agreement has not been ratified by the Russian Duma. In fact, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to move back the date for completing START II reductions from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2007. There has been no progress on START III. The US and Russia still maintain dangerous postures of launch on warning. Some 5,000 nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready for immediate launching.

    The US still considers its nuclear arsenal to be the “cornerstone” of its security policy. It has fought against a NATO review of nuclear policy. It has fought against consideration of nuclear disarmament in the UN Conference on Disarmament. It has refused to consider a No First Use policy. Further, it has promoted policies such as the expansion of NATO and the development of a National Missile Defense system that have made the Russians feel more threatened and rely more heavily on their nuclear arsenal.

    In 1996 the International Court of Justice said that any threat or use of nuclear weapons that would violate international humanitarian law would be illegal. This means that nuclear weapons cannot be threatened or used if they would fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians, or if they would cause unnecessary suffering to combatants. Since it would be impossible to use nuclear weapons in any manner that would not either grossly injure non-combatants or cause unnecessary suffering to combatants, any threat or use of nuclear weapons would be illegal. This ruling by the World Court has been largely ignored by the nuclear weapons states.

    The Court also pointed out in its opinion that the effects of the use of nuclear weapons cannot be controlled in either time or space. We know, for example, that today people are continuing to suffer and die as a result of the radiation releases from the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons that took place for four decades until the mid-1980s.

    At the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference, a group of Non-Governmental Organizations from around the world lobbied for greater progress on nuclear disarmament. Disappointed by the outcome of the conference, they formed a global network, which is called Abolition 2000, to work for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Abolition 2000 is a citizens movement, which is now composed of some 1,400 citizen action groups in 89 countries. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is the International Contact for this global network.

    Abolition 2000 has called for an international treaty to be concluded by the end of the year 2000 which would lead to the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Its goal is to enter the 21st century with a treaty in place providing a firm commitment on the part of the nuclear weapons states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. As the year 2000 is approaching rapidly, this may seem like an unrealizable goal. But this is not necessarily the case.

    Democracies respond to overwhelming citizen pressure. If such pressure were forthcoming in the United States, it could turn the tide. If we have continued complacency, then we will enter the 21st century with inertia and perhaps we will have to wait until a nuclear weapon destroys another city or many cities somewhere in the world before there is action to eliminate nuclear weapons. On the other hand, if Americans were to say, “Enough is enough,” and demand leadership from our government to obtain a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, it could be done and it could be done rapidly.

    At the present time our national security is based upon the illegal threat of nuclear weapons use that could result in the murder of hundreds of millions of innocent people. We are all accomplices to this illegal threat. Were this threat ever to be carried out, we would be accomplices, willing or unwilling, to what the president of the World Court has described as the “ultimate evil.” If nuclear weapons are ever used again, by accident or design, it will be a greater crime than that committed by the Nazis during World War II. The German people were rightly terrified to challenge the Nazis. The American people have no such excuse. Nor can we claim ignorance. We are all parties to the threatened crime. And, as we learned at Nuremberg, superior orders do not constitute a defense.

    Someone recently said to me, “I’m glad you’re working on this because I have other priorities.” That was not comforting. No one person is going to turn this country around. It will take all of us together. And all of us together can do it. As Jody Williams, the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for the Landmines Campaign, said, “We are the new superpower.” She didn’t mean the United States or any other powerful nation alone. She meant us – you, me, and millions like us. Together we are the new superpower, but only if we make our voices heard.

    I encourage you to write to the President and your representatives in Congress and to raise the issue of nuclear threat in every campaign setting in the upcoming elections. Ask that nuclear weapons be taken off alert status (if for no other reason than to avoid the problems associated with Y2K). Ask that the US adopt a policy of No First Use. Ask that the US take leadership in negotiating an international treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention similar to what we already have for chemical and biological weapons, setting forth the steps for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Make the candidates discuss these issues. Make them declare where they stand on these issues.

    In the final analysis, nuclear weapons are not weapons at all. They are the most terrible instruments of mass annihilation yet created by men. They are portable incinerators. They are illegal, immoral, and undemocratic. They have cost us some $6 trillion since the beginning of the Nuclear Age. More damaging still, they have cast a dark shadow over our consciences and our souls. I urge each of you to make your voice heard and to demand an end to the outrage of relying upon nuclear weapons for what they can never give to us — security.

    Let us enter the 21st century with a commitment in place to abolish nuclear weapons. And if we cannot do it in the year 2000, let us recommit ourselves for the next year and as long as it takes to rid the world of this evil. In doing so, we will keep faith with all humanity that has preceded us and with all generations to follow. Perhaps most important, we will keep faith with ourselves and be, in the words of the great French writer, Albert Camus, “neither victims nor executioners.”

    * David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Stop Using Child Soldiers

    “I would like to say to other child soldiers…please do not lose your childhood as well as your future.” -Abdi, former child soldier from Somalia.

    There are an estimated three hundred thousand child soldiers around the world. Thousands of children 15 years of age and much younger are recruited every year in countries where contemporary conflicts are uprooting them from their childhood. The considerable numbers of child soldiers make one pause to think that the world is being sucked into a desolate moral vacuum, an endless void where children are now exploited as armed fighters. Angola recruits children at 17 and Uganda at 13 years of age as volunteers. The situation is urgent.

    Child soldiers are considered to be all children under 18 according to Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In reality, child soldiers are children young enough to lift a rifle. In 1998 alone, there were 35 major armed conflicts where children were used as soldiers. Violent conflict has always made victims of non-combatants, but now, more and more, the combatants are children.

    Contemporary armed conflicts have increased the risks for children because of the proliferation of inexpensive light weapons, such as the Russian-made AK-47 or the American M-16 assault rifles, which are easy for children to carry and use. An AK-47, for example, can be easily assembled by a 10-year old boy. The international arms trade is largely unrestricted making assault rifles cheap and widely available in the poorest communities. In the Sub-Saharan area, for example, an AK-47 can be purchased for as little as six dollars on the streets. It is often suggested that too much money is spent for defense in both the developed and developing countries of the world, and that some of that money might instead be used to relieve hunger and to promote children’s survival and development. But, worldwide, many national budgets stay sharply skewed in favor of defense year after year. If security means the protection of our most precious assets, child survival should be high on the agenda of all defense departments. Why isn’t it? Perhaps in reality, the operational function of defense establishments is not so much to maintain the security of the country as a whole but to assure that the powerful remain in power. Rather than serving all their citizens’ interests, defense budgets serve the survival of the rich, not the children or the poor.

    How are child soldiers recruited?

    Governments in a few countries legally conscript children under 18. In the UK, teenagers who are 16 can enlist in the military for a three-to five-year-tour-of-duty. In the US, a 17-year-old can enlist in the Marines. In both countries these young soldiers can be sent to war zones.

    Even where the legal minimum age is set at 18, the law is not necessarily a safeguard. Child soldiers may be kidnapped or forced by adults to join an army. Others may be forced to join armed groups to defend their families and villages.

    Once recruited as soldiers, children are treated as adults. Children often serve as porters, carrying heavy loads such as ammunition or injured soldiers. Children are extensively used also as lookouts, messengers, and for common household and routine maintenance duties such as cleaning and assembling artillery. In Ugandan armies, children can volunteer at 13. They are forced to hunt for wild fruits and vegetables, loot food from gardens, plunder granaries, and perform guard duty.

    Most of the children in armies come from conditions of poverty. These conditions may drive parents to offer their children for service or sell them into slavery. Children are also recruited in areas where there is a high level of illiteracy among their families and a strong prevalence of violence and ignorance in their communities. Most child soldiers, for example, never go to school throughout their childhood.

    The enslavement of children into guerrilla groups is a serious issue addressed recently by an international labor group. In July 1999, the International Labor Organization (ILO) unanimously adopted Convention No.182 which prohibited and called for immediate action on the elimination of the worst forms of child labor, especially the “forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.” The United States delegation to the ILO had opposed efforts to include a broad prohibition on child soldiers. Although trade unions and many governments supported a total ban on the participation of children in armed conflict, strong US pressure on the delegates to the ILO Convention resulted in the adoption of a much narrower, general prohibition on “forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflicts.”

    Physical, Psychological and Economic Harm

    Uncertain food supply and nonexistent health care are the worst economic consequences that wars bring into the reality of children on a daily basis. During the 1990s, an estimated two million children were killed in armed conflicts. Countless others have been seriously injured or have been forced to witness or take part in horrifying acts of violence. The shock, trauma, or Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTS) is generally not professionally treated immediately, if ever.

    Conflicts hurt children physically and psychologically. Children suffer the consequences of armed conflicts on their bodies because of the effects of maiming, torture, sexual violence or the multiple deprivations of war that expose them to hunger or disease. The psycho-social impacts of violence on children are as severe as physical wounds. Children respond to the stress of armed conflict with increased anxiety, developmental delays, sleep disturbance and nightmares, lack of appetite, withdrawn behavior, learning difficulties, and aggressive behavior.

    International law — The Geneva Conventions

    Humanitarian law focuses on situations of armed conflicts. Human rights law establishes rights that every individual should enjoy at all times, during both peace and war, such as the right to life, liberty and security.

    The international humanitarian law of armed conflict is reflected in four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and two 1977 Protocols. The Fourth Geneva Convention, relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war, is one of the main sources of protection for children. It prohibits not only murder, torture or mutilation of civilians, but also any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents.

    In 1977, these Geneva Conventions were supplemented by two protocols that unite two main branches of international humanitarian law — the branch concerned with protection of vulnerable groups and the branch regulating the conduct of hostilities. Protocol I requires fighting parties in international armed conflicts to distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians to ensure that the only legal targets of attack are military. Protocol II addresses non-international armed conflicts, that is to say, conflicts inside the borders of a nation. This protocol lists the fundamental rights of all who are not taking an active part in the hostilities, namely, the right to life, liberty and security of person. It also provides that children be given the care and aid they require for a normal childhood, including education and family reunion.

    Human rights law establishes rights that every individual should enjoy at all times, during both peace and war. The obligations, which are incumbent upon every nation, are based on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In formal legal terms, the primary responsibility for ensuring human rights rests with nations, since they alone can become contracting parties to the relevant treaties.

    Almost 190 states have agreed to the Geneva Conventions, making them the most widely ratified conventions in history. The majority of these states has also agreed to Protocol I and Protocol II. Although the United States has ratified the 1949 Geneva Conventions, it has not ratified the two protocols, objecting to the nature of these protocols.

    UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

    The Convention on the Rights of the Child focuses on situations of armed conflicts and the impacts on children. It was adopted by the General Assembly in November 1989 as the most comprehensive and specific protection for children worldwide. The Convention recognizes a list of rights that apply during both peacetime and war, such as protection of the family; essential care and assistance; access to health, food and education; and the prohibition of torture, abuse or neglect.

    Article 38 is known as the armed conflict article, but with regard to protection from recruitment it has little to offer. While the rest of the Convention is generally applicable to “every human being below the age of 18 years,” Article 38 makes a point of allowing children under 18 to take direct part in hostilities and to be recruited into a nation’s armed forces. It is all the more extraordinary because these restrictions are already embodied in international humanitarian law to which the article refers. Article 39 states that governments “…shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of…armed conflicts.” These articles, especially Article 38, call upon nations to respect international humanitarian law as a whole. On the other hand, these articles restate their provisions only on the age limits of a child soldier and, in actuality, offer no relief to an increasingly urgent situation. Three hundred thousand child soldiers — even one child soldier — are too many.

    The Convention: a commitment or a farce?

    In the ten years it took to negotiate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, many participating nations argued about the age limits. Both the United Arab Emirate and the United States did not want the minimum age for military recruitment to be 18. Currently the US accepts 17-year-olds with parental permission as voluntary recruits into the US Marines. According to the US Defense Department statistics, 17-year-olds make up less than one-half of 1% of all active US troops. The UK, which allows volunteer soldiers at 16 years, joined the US in its opposition. Some UK 16 year olds fought in the Falklands War and 200 were at the front in the Gulf War in 1991. The UK was even less ready than the US to make a compromise by raising the minimum age to 18.

    By the conclusion of the negotiations, the US and UK positions prevailed, and Article 38 stated that governments “shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities.” The irony is that despite its winning many concessions from others in the negotiations and ultimately achieving its way on Articles 38 and 39, the UK signed and ratified the Convention in 1992, but has ignored its provisions. The United States still has not ratified the Convention.

    In a letter made public on December 21, 1998, a broad group of US leaders called on President Clinton to support an international prohibition on the use of child soldiers. The letter, identifying the use of children as soldiers as “one of the most alarming and tragic trends in modern warfare,” was signed by the leaders of forty human rights, religious, peace, humanitarian, child welfare, veterans and professional organizations. Signers of the appeal included Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll Jr., US Navy (retired); Robert Muller, President of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation; Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches; Dr. David Pruitt, President of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Dr. William Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA; Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch; Bob Chase, President of the National Education Association; Randall Robinson, President of TransAfrica; Charles Lyons, President of the US Committee for UNICEF.

    The debate on age continues and more efforts have been made by other countries. In August 1999, the Nordic Foreign Ministers from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, signed a declaration against the use of child soldiers. In this declaration the Nordic Foreign Ministers supported an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulating that anyone under the age of 18 years not be recruited into their armed forces nor allowed to take any part in hostilities. This optional protocol has not yet been added to the Convention.

    On August 25, 1999 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1261 condemning the effects of war on children. The resolution strongly condemns the targeting of children and the recruitment of children in armed conflicts, but it does not call for a total prohibition on any recruitment or participation in armed conflict of children under the age of 18. Following the principles of international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court the resolution prohibits only the use of children under the age of 15 in armed conflicts because it is considered a war crime. According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court “conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities” is considered a war crime. (Art. 8, XXVI)

    Rehabilitation of Child Soldiers: a Step Towards a Better Future

    In recent years there have been important international developments in establishing rehabilitation centers for ex-child soldiers. Rehabilitation centers now exist in Africa and Colombia. In Africa there is the Family Home Care Center in Lakka, Sierra Leone directed by COOPI, an Italian NGO, in collaboration with UNICEF and the Family Homes Movement. There is also the Reconstruindo a Esperança (Rebuilding Hope) Center in Maputo, Mozambique where a group of psychiatrists help former child soldiers re-enter mainstream society. In Colombia the Colombian Welfare Institute (ICBF) houses combatant children while awaiting openings in a rehabilitation center.

    The use of child soldiers is arguably worst in Africa. It is there, however, that the most progress has been made in raising the age of conscription to 18 and in involving ex-child soldiers in rehabilitation centers. The 1990 African Charter for the Rights and Welfare of the Child prohibits both recruitment and use of children under 18 as soldiers. It has thus far been ratified by only 15 of the 53 African countries members of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Among the 15 states that have ratified are Angola, Benin, Mozambique, Senegal Togo, and Uganda. Although the Charter came into force on November 20, 1999, Angola and Uganda are still recruiting children under the age of 18. Angola recruits children at 17 and Uganda at 13 years of age as volunteers.

    In October 1999 a Conference was held in Berlin on the use of child soldiers in Europe. The conference brought a new hope to the child soldiers issue. Its Berlin Declaration calls for the swift adoption and implementation of new international law prohibiting all participation in armed conflict of children under 18 years of age. However, the declaration was weakened by the refusal of a number of European states to adopt 18 as the minimum age for the participation in armed conflict — notably Austria, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the UK. In addition, the UK intends to continue its policy of recruiting girls and boys at 16 years of age and deploying them at 17.

    Despite this, a gleam of hope has started to light the path towards change. The US Congress has already passed a resolution (S.Con.Res.72) introduced by Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), which condemns the use of child soldiers, calls for greater support for rehabilitation and reintegration efforts for ex-child soldiers, and urges the US not to block a ban on the participation of children under 18 in the armed forces. The resolution was referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on November 10, 1999.

    In addition, the UN Secretary-General Special’s Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara A. Otunnu, presently serves as advocate for children in armed conflicts and is recognized widely for his catalytic work with the United Nations and NGOs concerned about the child soldiers issue. Otunnu has been an advocate for child soldiers, who recognize in him a source of hope for their future. Otunnu has made an outstanding contribution to the protection and the rehabilitation of children involved in armed conflicts by informing and mobilizing international public opinion. He has made people more aware of the fact that the welfare of children affected by armed conflict is a priority issue for the entire world.

    It is uncertain if substantial changes can be made in a short time when the international debates center on legal age rather than on the humanitarian problems that these children have to face; but as Otunnu said in his report to the United Nations General Assembly on October 26, 1999, “hopes have been renewed by the extraordinary things done by ordinary people.” The efforts of these ordinary people, such as you and me, cannot be underestimated.

    There are many things that we as citizens can do to make a change and give more hope to solving the problem of child soldiers. These include: Join the US campaign to stop the use of child soldiers, by writing or calling the President, the Secretary of State and the members of Congress on this issue. Support the implementation of the Wellstone Senate Resolution. Cooperate with others in your community to publicize the issue of child soldiers in all media – newspapers, radio talk shows, and TV. Support the adoption of an Arms Trade Code of Conduct that would ban the shipment of conventional weapons to countries violating human rights and where light weapons can be easily purchased on the market by children. An Arms Trade Code of Conduct bill (HR2269) has been introduced by Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA). The bill is now held in the House International Relations Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. Support humanitarian organizations, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), UNICEF, Amnesty International, Free the Children, and Rädda Barnen (Swedish Save the Children), that unhesitatingly struggle to set the minimum age at 18, support the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and advocate demobilizing and reintegrating child soldiers into the community.

    The efforts of ordinary people can help renew the culture of peace in all countries. The culture of a country is very important and people who get together and combine their forces can eliminate the sources of violence that are nourished by the availability of light weapons, violence in the entertainment media, and tolerance of domestic violence, and other factors. A global change occurred when ordinary people helped to conduct the campaign to ban landmines, and now it is time to do something to stop the use of child soldiers. Do not let the opportunity slip away to give hope to these children. Believe in the power of one. Even if your voice may seem faint, do not hesitate to let others hear about this serious and urgent matter. You really can create change!

    Stefania Capodaglio was the first Ruth Floyd Intern for Human Rights at the foundation’s Santa Barbara headquarters. She is a student at the Catholic University of Milan.

  • Hope For Humanity’s Future

    George Santayana, said “Progress, far from consisting of change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

    These are wise words which would well enter our minds as we reflect on the coming dawn of the 21st century. What is the greatest lesson of the 20th century? It is not man’s inhumanity to man. This has been a characteristic of human nature since time began. Man has also had rationality and this has characterized men’s relationship with one another since the dawn of history. This quality distinguishes civilization from the animal kingdom.

    It is this quality that has given rise to laws and negotiations for peace instead of war. It is this characteristic of rationality that leads men to establish institutions and organizations for human development. It also has led to the development of science and enormous strides in technology. Science and technology can be used for the progress and advancement of civilization or for the destruction of all on the planet. Rationality thus gives rise to the power to choose and it is this use of choice which is the fundamental issue which faces us in the 21st century catastrophe on a vast scale, as in the First and Second World Wars, or to employ it with all its enormous potential for peace, growth, development and human welfare on a scale never achieved or envisaged.

    To achieve this latter alternative, however, rationality must be employed on a scale as never before, giving rise to world order, to world peace based on law and justice worldwide. Co-ordination and mobilization of the efforts of all men and institutions is a necessary pre-requisite towards this end.

    Power must be humanized and subjected to laws. Human rights must be universalized and their grossest violations penalized. Impunity for such violations must no longer be the natural order of things but be relegated to the past. Efforts must b e intensified to put in place an international criminal jurisdiction so that perpetrators of atrocities against humanity, such as this century has witnessed, may be brought to account. On July 17, 1998, in Rome, one hundred and twenty nations took a significant step towards creating such a jurisdiction when they adopted a Statute for the International Criminal Court. We, the peoples of the 20th century, can make a lasting contribution to peace and security in the twenty first century and beyond by making this international system of justice a reality.

    Our very humanity must reassert itself with rights, principles, laws and institutions directed towards the enlightenment and advance of humankind of every creed and race in every region of the world.